Why don't you give us a tactical breakdown of what we should be doing when we're being pressed all over the pitch? Since you seem to think you know better. Our players have displayed for years that they crumble when pressed hard on the ball all over the pitch.
Just to throw my two cents in, because I think that's a really interesting question (sorry for interjecting if you only wanted to hear from R'sUL), I'd point to three things:
1. The way we play off the ball has a huge impact on the way we are able to play on it. For years we have employed an outdated 'backing off absorbing pressure' style of defending which means we only ever win the ball back on the edge of our box. As a result there are no options for the man who finds himself on the ball, and pressure results in panicked clearances or rushed passes, and the team struggles to regain shape and composure. We need to catch up with the other top European teams in terms of pressing the ball as a unit and with the genuine intent to make a tackle if you can get close enough to do so. We absolutely have the personnel for that - players like Rooney, Kagawa, Welbeck, Jones, Evans, Hernandez, Valencia etc all love to defend positively, so I don't think it's much of a leap to assume that it's down to coaching/strategy that we defend so negatively. To play a confident passing game under pressure you need to have lots of the ball and you need to be able to win it back quickly and aggressively enough to maintain the required tempo and shape.
2. An attitude adjustment. I think the ability of a lot of our players on the ball and under pressure is vastly underrated because of the way we have played as a strategic unit at time over the last few seasons. The idea that Carrick, in particular, is poor under pressure is absurd. Watch highlight reels of last season and again and again and again you see him effortlessly escape, with a pass or a little shuffle, from three or four players all coming at him from different directions. The problem is that we seem to have developed a coached-in inferiority complex. The likes of Southampton, Swansea, Everton etc do not have better players than us. That's a fact. And yet because of the attitude instilled into them - that they
can keep the ball under pressure and against better teams, that they
are a unit worth far more than the sum of their parts, and that 'playing it safe' is not, the way the game is today, actually a 'safe' tactic if you want to win games. Very technically capable players in our side play it far too safe. We are too willing to turn and pass backwards as soon as the opposition get anywhere near them. We are too willing to play it long from the back just because a short option doesn't present itself immediately. And the players off the ball do not show that constant, tireless desire to be available for the ball at all times which is on show at Southampton and their ilk, not just the likes of Barca and Bayern. If a teammate is forced to hoof it long, or to resignedly turn and slog it back to de Gea unnecessarily, those around him are as much at fault as he is, if not more. The players need a combination of more confidence in their own ability on the ball (individually and as a team) and more discipline about putting in the work that a fast, effective passing game needs.
3. Another top midfielder. I've talked about Carrick being good under pressure despite what some seem determined to think, but he simply can't keep doing it on his own, and we've seen the huge problems we have when he's injured. Cleverley, to be fair to him, is very good on the ball under pressure. It's probably the strongest part of his game. But a team like United really shouldn't have to trade in all the things he should be better at just to get that. In a way, the first two points are much more fundamental than this one, but probably can't be effectively instituted until we get that top midfielder. Possibly until we get two, because even a Fabregas-type is going to struggle without the confidence in his Busquets/Alonso/Carrick/Schweinsteiger 'out ball' which allows him to take his time on the ball even with players bearing down on him.
tl;dr:
1: Aggressive team pressing off the ball.
2: Confidence in our ability to play under pressure, and discipline putting in the work to make it possible.
3: One (or, ideally, two) top midfielders.
